Leap shook his black mane and snorted, shifting his hooves nervously.

In the joy of the ride, Ramil had almost forgotten the purpose of their outing this morning, but

he trusted the stallion's instincts, not to mention his sense of smell. He reached for one of the

short spears strapped to his back.

"We're close, are we?"

Ramil strained his hearing, listening for the tell-tale sound of snuffing or movement in the

undergrowth. The ancient trees of the Royal Hunting Forest were particularly gnarled and squat

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in this part, as if like old men, they had stopped growing taller and started putting on weight

round their middles.

Dark green holly and brambles swallowed up the space beneath the oak canopy. Plenty of places

to hide; very hard to see. He nudged the horse forward. There! Definitely something moving

through the bushes. Ramil shifted his grip on the spear and held it ready over his shoulder.

Twigs snapped aside as a boar erupted from the undergrowth. Stubby tusks lowered, it charged

towards the horse and rider. Leap side-stepped deftly, moving to give Ramil a clear shot with his

spear. The boar passed them and reached the bank, trapped between huntsman

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and water. With gritty spirit, it wheeled round to face the spear, small black eyes glaring. Ramil

rose in the stirrups, paused, and then let the weapon drop.

"Lucky for you that my friends were not here, brother," he addressed the boar. Replacing the spear in its holster, he spurred Leap forward, jumping back over the stream, leaving a confused

boar in sole possession of the bank.

"Fine prince I am." Ramil chuckled, apologizing to Leap with a pat. "But we have meat and he was magnificent--a fine sire for lots more boars just like him, don't you think?"

A horn sounded in the trees to the east, summoning the stray Prince to return to the hunt. Ramil

and Leap trotted back at peace with each other. As they neared the old road, three young lords

on fine horses joined them.

"There you are, Ramil!" called Hortlan, the Prince's cousin. "So what have you caught?" He gave Ramil a huge grin, already knowing from the empty space on the pommel that the chase had

been fruitless.

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"I had him. I was this close!" replied Ramil, holding up a gloved hand, finger and thumb

indicating the distance. "A massive boar, enough to feed the whole household for a week!"

"And?" Hortlan mocked, giving no credence to his cousin's description.

"He charged and I--" Ramil began to laugh, both at himself and at his friend's expression of scepticism. "And I ran for it."

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"Now that I don't believe!" Hortlan slapped Ramil on the back. With his long light-brown hair and blue eyes, Hortlan was as unlike his curly black-haired, dark-eyed cousin as one could get. "A Burinholt run from a little hairy pig?

Never!"

Ramil shrugged. "All right, all right, I made that part up."

"And the boar too, if you ask me," muttered Lord Yendral to the trees, but loud enough for all to hear.

"Ramil the Unblooded, that's what we should call you. Bane of every hunt,"

quipped Lord Usk, son of the Gerfalian Prime Minister. A big-framed youth, he had the reddish-

brown hair of his Brigardian mother. "My father should propose a law to keep you in the castle

come winter. We'll all starve otherwise."

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Ramil bowed in his saddle. "Thank you for that vote of confidence in me, my friends. Come, let

us take back the tale of my heroic deeds to the castle and dine on fresh air and spring water in

my honor."

Ramil always insisted on grooming his own horse, so he waved away the stable boys waiting in

the courtyard for the huntsmen's return. The stables were his favorite part of the royal palace,

built within the walls of the old fortress, the castle keep. The first King Burinholt had established

his throne in dark days when the Gerfafians were little better than raiding barbarians.

The core of his old coastal stronghold reflected these times: a simple round tower, a landmark to

ships at sea, built on a

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motte, with the rest of the castle sheltered in the bailey. Times had changed for the kingdom: no

enemies had come knocking at the door for so long that the palace had spread down the hill in

more elegant and much less

defensible buildings. A splendid feasting hall now sat on a low promontory opposite the original

tower; its high windows and vaulted roof, decked with beautiful stone pinnacles, was in clear

view of every house in the valley.

Ramil knew that his people thought of the feasting hall as the center of power, but he preferred

to think of the modest round keep as the true heart of the kingdom. It was where the King and

his family still lived, simple in their tastes and dress when not on show.

Ramil hummed a folk song to Leap as he groomed him. He loved the deep colors of the horse's

coat. Unless you were this close, you would call him black but Ramil knew he was really a deep

blue--the color, his mother had claimed, of the night sky over the desert. Leap, a birthday

present, was one of the last links to her since her death seven years ago. She had died giving

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birth to his little sister, Briony, a honey-skinned creature with round scared eyes, an exchange

for the vibrant Queen Zarai of Gerfal. The entire nation had mourned Zarai. Ramil had found it

hard not to hold his mother's death against the little girl, her only fault being that she had been

born.

Ramil wondered if he over-compensated by being too kind and polite to the young Princess,

rarely if ever showing her the rough-and-tumble, easy love of a

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brother. She had always treated him with suspicion as if she sensed his resentment. They spent

little time together, but still he felt as if he had let down his mother by somehow failing to love

his sister enough.

"I know, I'll teach her to ride," Ramil told Leap. "I'll get a nice docile pony and take her round the palace park tomorrow. She's half Horse Follower too: maybe that will set things right between

us."

Happier with himself, he slung the grooming equipment into a bucket, gave Leap a final stroke

on the nose, and headed back to his rooms. As he entered the dark archway leading into the

keep, he was intercepted by one of his father's servants.

"Your Highness, His Majesty requests your presence in the council chamber immediately,"

intoned the elderly man with great self-importance.

Ramil sniffed at his sweaty hunting clothes, muddy brown breeches, and leather jerkin.

"Not like this, surely?"

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"Immediately, Your Highness; those were his very words."

With a mild curse, Ramil retraced his steps, crossed the courtyard separating the keep from the

feasting hall and entered a long, low building to the right of the grand entrance. His feet echoed

in the cloister, disturbing the scribes at their desks in the administrative heart of the kingdom.

Seeing who was passing, they all stood and bowed. So used to this treatment, Ramil did not

notice them bend, no more than he questioned the breeze through long grass.

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King Lagan ac Burinholt was sitting at the head of the table in the White Stone Council Chamber

when his son clattered into the room. And he was not alone. Ramil saw at once that most of his

ministers and three foreigners were with him. King Lagan frowned when he noticed the state of